Some jurors are thinkers and enjoy such activities as effortful thinking, sudoku, logic puzzles, and playing chess. These "thinking" jurors pay close attention to and scrutinize carefully what is said to them. These jurors have what is called a high need for cognition. Other jurors are less motivated to engage in effortful thinking. These jurors have a low need for cognition...
Expert psychological testimony can be clinical or actuarial. Clinical expert psychological testimony is based on a clinician's opinion stemming from years of experience within the field. Actuarial expert psychological testimony is based on standardized assessment measures. Krauss (2000) explored whether jurors were more influenced in their decision-making...
Hahn and Clayton (1996) compared reactions of male and female jurors to either a male or female defense attorney cross-examining a witness in an assault and robbery case. The attorney variously used an aggressive or non-aggressive presentation style...
Male jurors, though not female jurors, respond differently to male and female attorneys. Pfeifer (1988) compared reactions of male and female jurors to a male and female prosecutor...
Unlike criminal cases where pretrial publicity is usually about the defendant (rather than the prosecutor), pretrial publicity in civil cases might be about either the defendant or the plaintiff. Borstein and colleagues (2002) explored the effects of pretrial publicity in a personal injury case concerning the leakage of a chemical...
ttorneys make promises to the jury in opening statements about what the evidence will show. Sometimes the evidence fails to fulfill one or more of these promises. Pyszczynski and colleagues (1981) investigated the effects of a promise made in an opening statement of a criminal trial that went unmet in the presentation of evidence...
The defense can give its opening statement immediately after a prosecutor's opening, or reserve its opening until after the prosecutor's case has been presented to jurors. Wells and colleagues (1985) explored how the timing of a defense attorney's opening statement affected jurors' perceptions and verdicts...
Landsman and Rakos (1994) tested whether judges, due to their training and experience, are better than juries at ignoring biasing or inadmissible material. In this research, 88 judges and 104 jurors rendered liability verdicts on a products liability case...
One way to respond to criminal charges is by claiming that a defendant was induced to engage in illegal behavior by law enforcement. Borgida and Park (1988) found that jurors...